The biggest story out of Africa last year did not occupy the headlines the way dramatic revolutions in the Maghreb, civil strife in West Africa, the independence of South Sudan, famine in the Horn of Africa, piracy off the Somali coast, fraud-ridden elections in the ironically-named Democratic Republic of the Congo, and various other developments each did in turn.

From Carlo Munoz, AOL Defense:  The Pentagon is offering field commanders control of counterintelligence operations to cope with the never-ceasing efforts by countries such as China, Iran and Israel to gain access to classified information and technology.

 From Lolita C. Baldor, the AP:  NATO's mission in Libya cannot end as long as fighting continues, including in Moammar Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday.

From the AP:  The military mission in Libya is largely complete and NATO’s involvement could begin to wrap up as soon as this coming week after allied leaders meet in Brussels, according to the top U.S. commander for Africa.

Dr. J. Peter Pham, director of the Michael S. Ansari Africa Center, authored a chapter on “AFRICOM’s Strategic Assumptions” for a new volume on African Security and the African Command: Viewpoints on the U.S. Role in Africa, edited by Terry Buss, Joseph Adjaye, Donald Goldstein, and Louis Picard.

From Bill Gertz, Inside the Ring:  The Pentagon is studying how to expand the use of highly effective combat drone aircraft from the Middle East and Southwest Asia to other commands

From Donna Cassata, the AP:  The military force unleashed on Libya by the U.S. and its partners upset several African nations despite the international community's widespread concerns over Moammar Gadhafi's use of force against his own people

From James Stavridis, EUCOM:  Not surprisingly, I’ve received a lot of questions about what is happening in Libya in both my capacity as Commander of the US European Command (USEUCOM) and as the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR).